DEAUVILLE, France — Department store chain Printemps has transformed its smallest store in France into a colourful concept store geared toward wealthy holiday-makers, in a preview of the brand new format it can roll out on a bigger scale at its Recent York flagship, set to open next 12 months.

The 12,900-square-foot store within the seaside town of Deauville is about to reopen on Friday after a five-month renovation that involved flattening partitions and opening windows to provide the neo-Norman style constructing, originally constructed in 1912, the texture of a lush private home.

“It’s a store that may turn into a memorable and essential destination in Deauville,” said Printemps chief executive officer Jean-Marc Bellaiche. “It’s our first store of this type. It’s really a novel concept.”

Printemps has scrapped brand counters in favor of a cross-merchandising approach, eliminating any labels which can be available elsewhere on the town and replacing them with a number of 300 brands, of which 85 percent are exclusive to the shop and 85 percent are recent.  

It has a sales staff of 40, including six personal shoppers, all of whom are directly employed by the retailer and trained to sell across categories including womenswear, menswear, watches and jewellery, shoes, beauty, gifts and homewares. 

Bellaiche touted it as the most recent example of Printemps’ strategy of rolling out unique concepts, corresponding to the temporary rooftop café it opened recently in partnership with jeweler Messika at its Boulevard Haussmann flagship in Paris. 

“There may be at all times a more intimate side, a more human side to what we do compared with our competitors, who’re sometimes too big or too diverse,” he said.

“This store can also be taking a risk,” Bellaiche added. “Deauville provides you with a foretaste of what Recent York can be like. Recent York will represent an excellent greater investment, particularly by way of architecture, but by way of offer, by way of rationale, it can even be a really large concept store reasonably than a department store.”

Spread over two floors, rooms are decked out in brilliant hues inspired by local landscapes, with mosaic floors set off with carpets in oversized motifs drawn from the Printemps archives. 

The curved outline of the clothing racks is inspired by traditional local furniture, and shelves are dotted with thrift store finds, including a battered brown hat box and a yellow sewing machine. 

Recent features include an atrium with 33-foot-high suspended sculpture consisting of 1,500 brass leaves, 80 ceramic magnolia flowers and LED lights.

Sophie Bocquet, chief network officer of Printemps and its urban apparel chain Citadium, said the Deauville store caters to an affluent crowd made up of 43 percent tourists, 22 percent individuals with second homes in the realm, and 35 percent local residents.

Its average basket of 250 euros was already the best of its regional network in France, and Bocquet expects the renovation to spice up annual sales by a minimum of 25 percent. 

“This store is an actual game-changer. It’s something that’s never been done, either at Printemps or elsewhere. We practically began from a blank page, as if we were opening a store and never reopening it,” she said.

With products starting from hostess gifts corresponding to 95-euro Guerlain candles, to a large ceramic urn that retails for 1,050 euros, the shop is an impulse shopper’s delight. “Deauville is synonymous with pleasure, so once you come to Deauville, you actually need to treat yourself or someone near you,” Bocquet said.

When the placement originally bowed in 1912, it marked the primary time any French department store had opened a branch outside Paris, noted Stéphane Roth, chief marketing and communication officer at Printemps. 

It was built concurrently the Normandy hotel across the road to cater to a growing leisure class, drawn by attractions including a casino and a racetrack. 

Printemps renovated the facade of the listed constructing between 2017 and 2019, and has replicated its timber structure within the décor of the watches and jewellery department on the primary floor, which is now flooded with natural light. The ground can also be home to shoes and sweetness, including a treatment room offering FaceKult facials.

On the bottom floor, clothes and accessories from labels including Burberry, Céline, Chloé, Courrèges, Jacquemus, Khaite, Loewe, Miu Miu, Prada and Valentino sits alongside items like Cire Trudon candles, Baccarat crystal objects and a porcelain edition of Jeff Koons’ Ballon Dog (Blue) sculpture by Bernardaud that retails for a cool 50,400 euros. 

There may be also loads of casual fashion on offer, from Carhartt, Diesel and Levi’s, to Erès and Atalaye swimwear, embroidered beach dresses from Benaras by Citrus, and summer-ready footwear from K. Jacques, Ancient Greek Sandals and Alohas, amongst others.

Among the many number of vintage clothes and accessories within the Second Printemps room is a hard-to-find black Hermès Kelly bag, while the retailer’s own Saison 1865 label offers accessibly priced contemporary styles with a sustainable bent. “It’s a range worthy of a world capital, each by way of quality and creativity,” Roth remarked. 

Already France’s second hottest destination for conferences, Deauville should receive a visitor boost next 12 months when the region marks the eightieth anniversary of the D-Day landings. And next September, Printemps will partner for the primary time with the Deauville American Film Festival. 

“We’re betting on the proven fact that Deauville will proceed to see strong international growth. It already has a really high visibility,” said Bellaiche. 

He said Printemps is considering opening similar stores in other French cities, although the offer may be tweaked according to the placement’s potential. “We consider that a smaller format brings us closer to the client,” he said.

Group comparable sales at Printemps were up 25 percent year-on-year within the fiscal 12 months resulted in March 2023, in keeping with Bellaiche, and remain down 2 percent versus the 12 months before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Printemps has 16 department shops, including one overseas branch in Doha, Qatar; nine Citadium stores, and 4 e-commerce sites: printemps.com, citadium.com, fashion e-commerce site Place des Tendances and online homewares retailer Made in Design.